


Flight

by doublejoint



Series: Fins [7]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, MerMay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: It’s been a long time since he’s felt this same mix of steady and sure and deeply anxious, like something coming up through the back of his skin and spiking, an imbalance that rocks him more than the boat.
Relationships: Himuro Tatsuya/Kagami Taiga
Series: Fins [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/498337
Kudos: 4





	Flight

Tatsuya doesn’t mean to fall asleep on the boat. His book is boring, though, and his mind wanders to the sun shining bright behind the clouds, the sunscreen stain on his sunglasses that he keeps meaning to scrub off, whatever Taiga’s doing in the water, the smell of the salt in the air like being in the center of an oyster on land. It’s always easier to fall asleep in the water, and this isn’t quite like being under the surface, but it’s as close as he’ll let himself get right now. 

It’s been a long time since he’s felt this same mix of steady and sure and deeply anxious, like something coming up through the back of his skin and spiking, an imbalance that rocks him more than the boat, and doesn’t allow him more than a doze, his eye close but his skin aware of the gathering sweat and occasional spray of foam. The paperback will be ruined, or close to it, but if Tatsuya thinks too hard about his hand clasping it to his chest, his finger marking the page, he’ll wake up. He diverts his mind to Taiga, transformed and in the water, holding out a hand. 

He’d nearly taken it, stripped off his clothes and went in and transformed, or at least tried. He didn’t even have to do that; Taiga doesn’t have to tell him that it’s okay if he doesn’t transform and just lets Taiga share the water with him, holds his breath and stays near the surface. He could have sat at the end of the boat and let his feet dangle off and watched. It would have hurt, but it has to hurt either way.

Maybe it’s all a mistake. Taiga wants it, and God, Tatsuya wants it too, but what if that’s not enough? What if he’s not enough--not enough merman, not enough human, not enough anything? Worse than Taiga not wanting this at all is Taiga wanting to want him and having the best of intentions and faith, but Tatsuya coming up short in ways too big for Taiga to push aside. He doesn’t feel like that now, but when the freshness of getting to know each other all over again fades, what will be left, drying out in the sun?

Tatsuya’s thought himself awake. He blinks. His hand is sore from holding open the book and needs to move right now; he pulls it out and loses his page. The book is only slightly damp, but it fals to the floor of the boat where Tatsuya can’t be bothered to pick it up. The sun’s half-emerged from its place behind the cloud. Tatsuya squints and yawns, and then makes his way over to the stern. The cold water will shock him awake if he dangles in his feet, and he’ll be able to see Taiga coming back--or that’s the intention, anyway. As soon as he crouches down, Taiga’s head appears above the water, his hair and eyelashes wet.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Tatsuya says, yawning again.

“Have a good nap?” says Taiga.

“It was okay,” says Tatsuya (and he could have said something about having Taiga there with him, but--it’s really the other way around, he could have been dozing off in the waves with Taiga). “You ready to head back in?”

“You ready to come out here?” says Taiga.

One hand grips the side of the boat, the webbing between his fingers visible, obvious. It’s a chance to make up for this. He could screw it up, but he’s definitely going to screw up if he doesn’t take it.

“Sure,” says Tatsuya.

He shucks off his shirt and turns out his pockets, wrapping his keys and a wadded-up napkin inside the shirt and tossing it into the bottom of the boat. He looks back at Taiga, smiling brilliantly at him, and slides off the end of the boat and into the water.

It’s so fucking cold, a sharper shock than even getting fresh ice cream stock from the walk-in freezer; water is different around him than air and it’s so cold, dragging him down. He surfaces and his vision is blurry; the water is distorting the lenses of his sunglasses. He wipes them off with his wet fingers while treading water with his legs; it’s not much of an improvement. He can see Taiga gliding toward him, his tail stretched behind him under the surface of the water, the fin coming up just above water to glimmer off the sun. Maybe Tatsuya should have ditched his shorts--he still can, but— 

Taiga splashes him and Tatsuya’s jerked out of that rickety minic cart of thought, splashes him back as he ducks out of the way and darts back in the water. Taiga’s got the advantage here, but Tatsuya’s learned to do more with legs in the water than Taiga’s ever cared to, and he’s faster than most humans, faster than Taiga’s expecting. Taiga glances back, and he’s close enough for Tatsuya to take what’s given, drag the water and get closer. Taiga turns around, but Tatsuya’s caught up and he grabs Taiga around the waist. He can feel Taiga laughing before he sees it, and he laughs, too.

Tatsuya looks back; they can still see the boat. It’s not too far away, but farther than he’d thought he’d get--they’d get.

“It’ll be fine,” Taiga says.

Tatsuya nods. If something happened to the boat, if someone took it, if it suddenly were to capsize, then the decision would be out of his hands. He’d have to transform--that’s not true, though; he could make it back to shore, or Taiga would take him. He’d never force Tatsuya’s hand even if Tatsuya needs it to be forced; he’ll wait for Tatsuya to force it himself and that’s the only way it’ll ever work.

“Race you back,” says Tatsuya, letting go and giving himself a head start swimming back. 

Taiga wins, by two lengths, but Tatsuya had known he would, and he can’t expend all his energy if he’s going to transform.

He undoes his shorts and pulls them up and tosses them onto the boat, where they land right on top of his book with a wet smack.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” says Tatsuya.

Maybe he can’t; maybe his body has forgotten how to or he’s aged out of it or he’s too inhibited. But he won’t know if he doesn’t try, so he closes his eyes and lets himself sink under. Nothing happens, and then he feels it, the sensation of his legs being stuck together as if to the hot leather seats of a car in the summer, and then like a very strong glue. The scales burst through his skin and it hurts; he gasps in pain but he breathes in the water just fine, and he can feel it against the webbing of his fingers. He flicks his tail and feels his body suddenly propelled with more force than the most purposeful of his strokes, and he opens his eye. 

The open ocean stretches out before him, light wavering through the surface of the water, and there Taiga swims down to meet him, like some sort of saccharine dream he wouldn’t have dared to ever let himself think in all the years since they’d fought. Fuck.

“You’re still wearing your sunglasses,” Taiga says. 

He reaches out and takes them off, folds them in his hand. His smile is so soft, warmer than the open air on the boat, like he’s lighting up the ocean from the inside. Tatsuya kisses him first, his fingers in Taiga’s hair, his tail curling around Taiga’s, so much better than what it would be with their feet flat on the ground, pinned there by gravity.


End file.
